Gregory Michener, an Assistant Professor of political science and administration at the Fundaçao Getulio Vargas (EBAPE) in Rio de Janeiro, has an excellent piece on the Al Jazeera website explaining new tax transparency laws in Brazil.
Some of the key points to take from Michener’s piece are the volume of taxes collected in Brazil — about $850 billion each year — and the reliance on value added taxes rather than income tax. This means that a huge proportion of the funds raised by the Brazilian state come through regressive taxation programs that artificially raise the cost of goods and services for Brazil’s lower classes. Then there is the cost of collecting and remitting these taxes.
